How to boot Knoppix 4.0.2 from a floppy?

[chip.ling]

Thanks for the URL link. I eventually found my machine's Technical Reference Manual with other manuals from the site. My machine is Compad DeskPro 2000 Pentium 166MMX. One of the manual mentioned that I suppose to be able to go into the BIOS setting by hitting F10 during the POST stage. F10 is for the setup and F12 is the boot from the NIC.

But I do not see such F10/F12 notice when I boot my machine. Strange!

I finally find out why the F10 is not showing up on my computer.

I read through the Compaq Technical Reference Guide for DeskPro 2000. A lot of information there but does not answer my question. (it is a very very good manual, even with asm call to the bios)

Then I switch to another one called Compaq Maintenance & Service Guide, and I find my answer there:
1. (The good news) Press F10 when on the boot up POST stage will bring up the config utility program.
2. (The bad news) The config utility program is not on the ROM, it is on a small separate harddisk partition called diagnostics partition.

So in my case, my old harddisk crashed and I replace it with a new one. That diagnostics partition and the utility program is not on the new harddisk and that's why the F10 prompt never show up.

I will go to the Compaq support site and see if I can download the diagnostics utility program and run it to set the BIOS. Wish me good luck man!

[chip.ling]

I don't see how that could be, the most common use of SBM is to boot a CD when the BIOS doesn't know about CD booting. Of course the BIOS may have seen the CD device on the IDE interface, but why would it not do that for you if the drive has a normal IDE interface?

Yes, you are right at the part that when the BIOS does not have a choice for boot from the cd-rom. The SBM does the job and tell the machine to boot from the cd-rom.

But what my observation is, the BIOS needs to identify the existence of the cd-rom first, then it tells SBM "I can see a cd-rom here but I cannot make it as a boot disk". And finally SBM takes control and boot from the cd-rom. But the key point here is the BIOS needs to feed the cd-rom information to SBM before SBM can take over.

Just remember that the machine (and the BIOS) is very old. I replace a DVD-ROM to the machine so the BIOS may not be able to recognize the DVD-ROM as a standard IDE device.

[chip.ling]

I will go to the Compaq support site and see if I can download the diagnostics utility program and run it to set the BIOS. Wish me good luck man!

The attempt to run the Compaq diagnostics download program fails. I download the diagnostics utiltiy program from Compaq site and run it. It creates a bootable floppy disk.

When I run the floppy disk, my machine boots up no problem to MS-DOS and then it automatically kicks off the Compaq program.

Inside the application, I have three choices: 1. setup 2. view setup 3. configure partition.

I tried the first one, but got an error message saying it is not able to run the setup program and ask me for the setup disk. I already lost my setup disk so could not go further.

I tried the second one too but it hang my machine.

I did not try the third one cause I don't want to fool around my harddisk partition.

Looks like I need to go back to plan B and investigate the possibility to boot the Knoppix from DOS.

[chip.ling]

It Looks like to me that an other solution to your problem could be to make/modify and use a GRUB boot floppy disk.
There are two options to make this grub floppy disk:
a) use your DOS 95 boot floppy and copy grub.exe on it and update your config.sys to remove all devices
(grub.exe do not work with emm386.exe loaded)
b) install grub in the floppy (boot sectors of the floppy), cf grub man pages
(or from xp use http://s94002264.onlinehome.us/grub/grube.zip makeflo directory)
From there using the proper grub menu.lst config file, grub should be able to read
the linux kernel and boot ramdisk (linux & minirt_usb4.gz) from your disk drive
and from there boot knoppix from the cd drive or from the cd file image (iso file) stored on your hdd.
Link to grubh.zip (grub.exe and minirt_usb4.gz): http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtop...?p=98940#98940
Hope this helps,
Gilles

I finally got a DOS 98 boot disk, delete all stuffs in the config.sys file except the cd-rom driver line, same to the autoexec.bat file. Then I boot from the floppy, I have the DOS up and running with cd-rom.

Then I copied the grub.exe and the menu.lst to the floppy.

I edited the menu.lst file as follow:
color black/cyan yellow/cyan
timeout=5
default=0

title Knoppix 4.0.2 from DOS hdc IOS scan ramdisk=32MB
kernel (hdc)/boot/isolinux/linux ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off vga=791 nomce quiet bootfrom=/cdrom/boot/isolinux/linux config=scan home=scan ramdisk=32768
initrd (hdc)/boot/isolinux/minirt.gz
boot

I save the menu.lst file and then run the grub.exe with the following line:

a:\grub.exe --config-file=(fd0)/menu.lst

Then I got an error message:

Error 24: Error while parsing number

Any idea what I did wrong?

Rgds,
Chip

[ruymbeke]

I finally got a DOS 98 boot disk, delete all stuffs in the config.sys file except the cd-rom driver line, same to the autoexec.bat file.

Remove the cdrom dos drivers from both the config.sys and autoexec.bat.
Grub will use the bios system calls and do not need dos.
In fact, the dos cdrom driver hook may prevent grub to work properly.

Then I copied the grub.exe and the menu.lst to the floppy. I edited the menu.lst file as follow: ...
title Knoppix 4.0.2 from DOS hdc IOS scan ramdisk=32MB
kernel (hdc)/boot/isolinux/linux ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off vga=791 nomce quiet bootfrom=/cdrom/boot/isolinux/linux config=scan home=scan ramdisk=32768
initrd (hdc)/boot/isolinux/minirt.gz
boot
...

First, I assume that your cdrom drive is connected as the primary device on your second IDE controller (hdc).
Then you should remove the "bootfrom" cheatcode from the kernel command line
since you are looking for a regular Knoppix boot from the CD.
(The Kernel and boot ramdisk are loaded by grub, then the kernel mount the cd and loads the rest of Knoppix)
If the kernel and boot ramdisk cannot be loaded by grub from the cdrom,
you can try to copy them somewhere on your hdd and modify the menu.lst accordingly.
If you copy these files on a ntfs partition you will need to use the minirt_usb4.gz which includes the ntfs kernel driver.
Hope this helps,
Gilles

[jjmac]

Howdy,

Just on the SBM issue. I had a similar experiance on an older box that couldn't boot isolinux cdroms.

Sometimes SBM would list the drive in its' menu, other times it wouldn't.

Someone mentioned that at boot, sometimes, when the cdrom drive fires up initially, it dosen't stay alive long enough for a SBM floppy boot to see it.

So, while booting just key the drives button to open the tray door, then close it again.

The extra time spent active should allow SBM to reference it correctly, and then add it to your menu.


jm

[sungsam]

loadlin
why nobody try this tool? boot Linux from a DOS prompt,

but myself still not success with Knoppix 4.0, other Linux like Redhat I've successed.
when I already copy the \boot\isolinux boot images files, linux and minirt.gz, to the DOS partition of D:\ and make a bat file per the loadlin manul, it can not boot, said "hlt, wrong compress format"

i don't know where went wrong, but I'm quite sure this is the right way for this question, hope can get more feedback from other user.

rgds
George

[jjmac]

sungsam,

I think the point just relates to older bioses not having isolinux support. Makeing it hart to boot cdroms that use isolinux.

No idea why loadline isn't used . I don't know much about it my self.

If it has support to boot isolinux cdroms ... well, why not. I never thought it did though.


jm

[sungsam]

jm

I though the topic is related, as the CD / DVD of Knoppix is easy to copy to hd under windows, if we can figure out how to use the loadlin well, then we will be easy to boot knoppix from DOS / floppy.

tks

[jjmac]

Howdy sungsam,

Yes, i agree ... but as i have never used loadlin ???

You could try a few experiments but i suspect there may be some fundamental problems.

cdroms boot differently to hdds. And older bioses just lack support for the later isolinux styled cdrom boot process. My own bios is recent so it doesn't have any problems.

SBM is designed to provide that support for older systems. But as mentioned, i also found the cdrom item missing from the SBM menu at times in my old box.

It was traced to the drive firing up and then turning off to quickly at boot. The SBM program just wasn't quick enough to detect it.

Keying the drive to get the tray to open though fixed that .

I think it would be a good idea to have a Windows/dos facility available. I suppose we could lobby MS to see if they wouldn't mind providing a means to boot Linux cdroms through their system. But i think i can guess on the answer to that


jm